Everything you include in your blog posts should aim to keep your reader from leaving the page AND provide the information their looking for as quickly and clearly as possible.

Visuals help with both of these things.

Great bloggers often evoke their inner Bob Ross and ignore their inner Ernest Hemmingway (if you didn't do your assigned reading in high school and that reference when over your head, he was a notoriously wordy author).

The purpose of the first sentence is to get the reader to read the second. The purpose of the second is to get the reader to read the third.

Ok, you're sold on adding visual content to your posts (or you're a robot that is immune to persuasion).

Before I give you the different types of media elements you can add to your blog posts, let me explain my approach to adding media to my blog posts.

How To Use Media in Your Blog Posts

You shouldn't throw visuals into your posts without purpose and context.

I am NOT recommending that you use every single one of these visuals in your posts but I am going to try to give you some inspiration for visual elements you MIGHT want to add.

WARNING

Don't add too many visuals to your post if it doesn't match your style and particular audience. I like to use a LOT of visuals in my content and my readers have come to expect it. Every blog is different so don't assume I'm insinuating you should use as many visuals or all of the visual types I'm about to share.

Your posts should blend well with the theme and style of your blog.

Everyone's audience is unique and your media should be targeted towards your unique brand and following.

If you're in a professional niche, you might not want to use funny gifs and goofy YouTube videos like I do.

If you're style is more laid back, you have a tremendous amount of freedom for making your posts more fun for your readers and you can take full advantage of this fact and utilize as many visuals as you want to craft posts that keep visitors on your page until the last sentence (which should then encourage them to do something else, like buy something!)

The rule of thumb I use here on the EntreResource.com blog is to add some sort of visual break up every 250 words.

Remember, that is MY rule for THIS blog. This may or may not be the same for you. If you read other blogs, you might notice that this is a lot of visuals relatively speaking.

A "visual break up" isn't merely limited to images and videos. I use things like content boxes, quotes and other tactics to make sure my text isn't too...texty!

Yes, I made up that word...

The Best Tool for Crafting Visually Attractive Blog Posts in WordPress

Before I get into the tips themselves, I need to share with you the wordpress theme/blog post editor that helps bloggers (myself included) create awesome looking posts.

It's called Thrive Themes and there is a plugin called "Thrive Architect" that makes editing your posts easy.

I HIGHLY recommend that you check out Thrive Themes. It has changed everything about how I craft my posts and I haven't looked back since I started using it almost 2 years ago.

Valuable Tip

Thrive Themes gives you a LOT of options when it comes to designing your posts. Some bloggers don't like having a lot of options because they want things to look "perfect."

This is of course impossible to accomplish.

Don't feel that you need to use every feature or that you need to customize the heck out of everything. There is no harm in keeping things simple.

Also, be sure to utilize the "save as template" functionality so you can have consistency in your blog post designs and use the same formatting in all of your content.

Oh, that content box I just used above was actually one of the built in templates from Thrive Architect 🙂

I don't know of any current Thrive Themes discount codes, but it is well worth the current price.

1. Featured Images

This seemed like a fitting #1 tip since the featured image will be the first thing that your reader sees.

If you have a great featured image, the reader might assume that the content is great as well.

You don't have to overlay your title text like I do. Many bloggers just use relevant stock images for their featured images. I prefer a little personality but I don't fault anyone who wants to keep it simple.

I do believe that a stock photo is better than nothing.

If you decide to customize your featured images with overlays like I do, there are a number of tools that make creating featured images easier.

Here are my two favorite tools for creating awesome featured images.

1. Canva- The most robust tool for the novice designer. You can create templates and branding style defaults that make creating lots of featured images very easy. You can also use Canva for creating other media elements like infographics, ads and more.

2. Relay That - I use this tool less frequently. This is a poor mans Canva (I purchased it on an AppSumo offer for $49). Definitely worth looking into though.

Valuable Tip

Create a basic template for all of your featured images. I made the mistake of creating unique featured images MYSELF every time I wrote a post...I did this for about 100 posts! Create one great style and use it over and over with different images and colors.

2. Drop Caps

In the spirit of tip #1, this seemed like a fitting #2.

Now, that large "D" there isn't a typo, it's an example of a drop cap.

A "drop cap" is when you use a proportionally larger first letter for effect, typically featured in the of the first word of a blog post.

3. Bold, Italics, CAPS, Colors,Underlines and HIGHLIGHTS,

If you have an important sentence, feel free to draw attention to it with the use of simple enhancements.

I recommend that you practice some consistency though if possible.

If you usually highlight text that is important, try to do that across all of your posts for continuity.

Also, ALL CAPS seems like yelling so be sure to use that properly.

Be careful not to over do it with these though. It will lose impact if you use these too often.

4. Author's Bio

Blogs that have multiple writers should always include an author's bio at the beginning or end (or both) of each post.

It seems standard across most blogs to include a short bio at the top consisting of the author's name + picture + his or her title followed by a more detailed bio consisting of about a paragraph at the end.

Just ask Jeff Bullas who just got one from me with his infographic above!

You can create your own infographics with tools like Canva OR hire someone on a site like Fiverr (low end) or 99 Designs (higher end).

9. Slideshare Slideshows [Embedded]

LinkedIn has a lesser known service called Slideshare that actually can generate a lot of traffic back to your site.

Creating slideshows is easy and you can get embed codes to insert them into your posts very easily.

You can use any powerpoint tool to make these presentations (I like Google Slides).

10. Pinterest Pins [Embedded]

Pinterest is an awesome channel for bloggers to repurpose their content and get more clicks back to their sites.

If you're unfamiliar with Pinterest, I highly recommend looking into a course called Pinterest for E-Commerce. It is an awesome starting place to learn how to make Pinterest work for your blog or business.

Oh, and follow me on Pinterest if you aren't already 🙂

The process for embedding pins is a bit different.

You can't just embed the pin, you have to ALSO embed the "pinit.js" line of code at the end of the post.

11. Images

I've shared how to embed images, but now let's talk about adding images directly to your site.

If you decide to buy a camera, I recommend the Sony A5000 since it takes crisp photos and is a beast when it comes to filming videos for YouTube thanks to it's adjustable screen which allows you to watch yourself as you record.

I use that camera and my iPhone for most of my filming and images. The iPhone is mostly for images and on the go shots while the Sony A5000 typically stays mounted in my studio on top of a Socialite 18" Lighting Ring Mount.

One of my favorite parts of the iPhone is that it syncs easily with my Macbook and iMac (yes, I'm an Apple fan boy).

I can get an image or video from my phone straight onto my computer for editing in less than a minute thanks to Apple's airdrop feature.

It's a beautiful thing.

For most devices that you use for photos and videos, there should be some sort of simple digital connectivity to make uploading your content to your computer easy. Take the time to find out how to do this with your devices and you'll save hours of time later!

Screen Captures

If your blog is like mine and you need to demo a lot of things that are on your computer, a tool like Snagit can be a lifesaver.

Currently it costs about $49 but it gives you the ability to take screenshots and annotate them (like I did in the air drop example above).

16. Pull Out Quotes

You're probably using quotes in your blog posts already, why not draw a little more attention to them by pulling them out to the forefront?

Using "pull out quotes" will help you break up your text and draw attention to key points.

Whether they are your own quotes or quotes from others, consider giving them the attention they deserve.

"Using 'pull out quotes' will help you break up your text and draw attention to key points."

I've created an example to the right. There are an infinite number of ways to format your own quotes so don't be afraid to get as detailed or keep it as simple as you want!

17. Images to Your Other Posts

You want to keep your readers on your site. If they are getting bored of one article, that isn't awesome BUT you can at least try to encourage them to read another article that might be more interesting to them.

I used the post grid feature in Thrive Architect to create the image with link to post above, but you can use a number of other tools to do this (or just use images with links).

18. GIFs

GIFs are the love child of images and videos.

They are typically under 30 seconds long and play automatically. The files aren't as large as videos and they can be used to add humor OR you can even make short tutorials like I have done in this article already several times.

I create my own GIFs with Snagit but you can make them with regular video files (your own or others that you have the rights to use) with tools sites like MakeaGif.com.

Occasionally, I'll embed a GIF from a 3rd party service like Giphy, like the one below.

GIFs rock. Use them freely!

19. Memes

If you don't know what a meme is, Google it.

Memes typically are funny and add a since of personality to your content.

You can find a lot of memes that you can use without attribution OR you can create your own with tools like MakeaMeme.org.

20. Content Boxes

Think of a content box like a post-it note that contains important information that your reader might want to know.

1. Compress Your Files

Google’s latest research shows that the chance of a bounce increases 32% when the page load time goes from 1s to 3s. 1s to 5s increases the chance to 90% and if your site takes up to 10s to load, the chance of a bounce increases to 123%.

Slow pages will lead to more bounced traffic, lower rankings in search engines and ultimately, fewer conversions.

Via https://www.submitinme.com/

This defeats the entire purpose of using them in the first place, doesn't it?

So, there are a couple of things we can do to make sure our pages are as zippy as possible.

Nate McCallister

Nate is the founder and main contributor of EntreResource.com. He is a lifestyle entrepreneur who spends his time building businesses and raising his two kids Sawyer and Brooks with his beautiful wife Emily. His main interests include copywriting, economics and piano.